A Daybook for May
in Yellow Springs, Ohio
A Memoir in Nature
and a Handbook for the Month,
Being a Personal Narrative and Synthesis of Common Events in Nature between 1981 and 2019
in Southwestern Ohio, with Applications
for the Lower Midwest and Middle Atlantic Region,
Containing Weather Guidelines
and a Variety of Natural Calendars,
Reflections by the Author
and Seasonal Quotations
from Ancient and Modern Writers
By
Bill Felker
A Daybook for the Year in Yellow Springs, Ohio
Volume 5: May
Cover from a watercolor by Libby Rudolf
Copyright 2019 by Bill Felker
Published by the Green Thrush Press
Box 431, Yellow Springs, Ohio
Printed in the United States of America Charleston, SC June 2018
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
ISBN-13: 978-1986502733
ISBN-10:1986502732
For Judy
No one suspects the days to be gods.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Introduction
Here are no stories told you of what is to be seen at the other end of the world, but of things at home, in your own Native Countrey, at your own doors, easily examinable with little travel, less cost, and very little hazard. This book doth not shew you a Telescope, but a Mirror, it goes not about to put a delightful cheat upon you, with objects at a great distance, but shews you yourselves.
Joshua Childrey, 1660
The memoir gathers together meteorological commentary made up from my lengthy obsession with tracking the weather, extensive notes about common events in nature, syntheses of these events and astronomical information based on my years of writing almanacs. Although I have organized my memoir on a scaffolding of back-yard natural history and observation, I am not a naturalist and have had no training in the natural sciences. All of what is contained in the Daybook is the result of my search for myself and for meaning.
This particular aspect of my search began in 1972 with the gift of a barometer. My wife, Jeanie, gave the instrument to me when I was succumbing to graduate school stress in Knoxville, Tennessee, and it became not only an escape from intense academic work, but the first step on the road to a different kind of awareness about the world.
From the start, I was never content just to watch the barometric needle; I had to record its movement, then graph it. I was fascinated by the alchemy of the charts that turned rain and Sun into visible patterns, symbols like notes on a sheet of music, or words on a page.
From my graphs of barometric pressure, I discovered that the number of cold fronts each month is more or less consistent, and that the Earth breathes at an average rate of about once every three to five days in the winter, and once each six to eight days at the peak of summer.
A short apprenticeship told me when important changes would occur and what kind of weather would take place on most any day. That information was expressed in the language of odds and percentages, and it was surprisingly accurate. Taking into consideration the consistency of certain patterns in the past, I could make fairly successful predictions about the likelihood of the repetition of such paradigms in the future. As Yeats says, the seasons “have their fixed returns,” and I found points all along the course of the year which appeared to be fixed moments for change. The pulse of the world was steadier than I had ever imagined.
My graphs also allowed me to see the special properties of each season. August’s barometric configurations, for example, are slow and gentle like low, rolling hills. Heat waves show up as plateaus. Thunderstorms are sharp, shallow troughs in the gentle waves of the atmospheric landscape. Autumn arrives like the sudden appearance of a pyramid on a broad plain. By the end of September, the fronts are stronger; the high-pressure peaks become taller; the lows are deeper, with almost every valley bringing rain. By December, the systems loom on the horizon of the graph like a range of mountains with violent extremes of altitude, sometimes snowcapped, almost always imposing and sliced by canyons of wind.
From watching the weather, it was an easy step to watching wildflowers. Identifying plants, I saw that flowers were natural allies of my graphs, and that they were parallel measures of the seasons and the passage of time. I kept a list of when each wildflower blossomed and saw how each one consistently opened around a specific day, and that even though a cold year could set blooming back up to two weeks, and unusual warmth accelerate it, average dates were quite useful in establishing sequence of bloom that always showed me where I was in the progress of the year.
In the summer of 1978, Jeanie and I took the family to Yellow Springs, Ohio, a small town just beyond the eastern edge of the Dayton suburbs. We bought a house and planned to stay. I began to write a nature almanac for the local newspaper. To my weather and wildflower notes I added daily sunrise and sunset times, moonrise and moonset, average and record temperatures, comments on foliage changes, bird migration dates, farm and gardening cycles and the rotation of the stars. The more I learned around Yellow Springs, the more I found applicable to the world beyond the village limits. The microclimate in which I immersed myself gradually became a key to the extended environment; the part unlocked the whole. My Yellow Springs gnomon that measured the movement of the Sun also measured my relationship to every other place on Earth.
My occasional trips turned into exercises in the measurement of variations in the landscape. When I drove 500 miles northwest, I not only entered a different space, but often a separate season, and I could mark the differences in degrees of flowers, insects, trees, and the development of the field crops. The most exciting trips were taken south in March; I could travel from Early Spring into Middle Spring and finally into Late Spring and summer along the Gulf Coast.
My engagement with the natural world, which began as an escape from academia, finally turned into a way of getting private bearings and of finding what I loved and believed. It was a process of spiritual as well as physical reorientation. In that way, all the historical statements in this collection of notes are the fruit of a strong desire to define where I am and what happens around me.
The Daybook Format
The format of my notes in this daybook owes more than a little to the almanacs I wrote for the Yellow Springs News between 1984 and 2018. The use of quotations, daily statistics, the weather outlooks, the seasonal calendar, and the daybook journal were and still are part of my regular routine of collecting and organizing impressions about the place in which I live.
Setting: The principal habitat described here is that of Glen Helen, a preserve of woods and glades that lies on the eastern border of the village of Yellow Springs in southwestern Ohio. At its northern edge, the Glen joins with John Bryan State Park to form a corridor about ten miles long and half a mile wide along the Little Miami River. The north section of the Glen Helen and John Bryan complex is hilly and heavily wooded and is the best location for spring wildflowers. The southern portion, “South Glen” as it is usually called, is a combination of open fields, wetlands, and wooded flatlands. Here I found many flowers and grasses of summer and fall. Together, the two Glens and John Bryan State Park provide a remarkable cross section of the fauna and flora of the eastern United States.
Other habitats in the daybook journal include my yard with its several small gardens; the village of Yellow Springs itself, a town of about 4,000 at the far eastern border of the Dayton suburbs and the Caesar Creek Reservoir twenty miles south of Yellow Springs. My trips away from that environment were principally northeast to Chicago, Madison, Wisconsin and northern Minnesota, east to Washington and New York, southeast to the Carolinas and Florida, southwest to Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, and occasionally through the Southwest to California and the Northwest, two excursions to Belize in Central America, several to Italy.
Quotations: The passages from ancient and modern writers (and sometimes from my alter egos) which accompany each day’s notations are lessons from my readings, as well as from distant seminary and university training, here put to work in service of the reconstruction of my sense of time and space. They are a collection of reminders, hopes, and promises for me that I find implicit in the seasons. They have become a kind of a cosmological scrapbook for me and the philosophical underpinning of this narrative.
Astronomical Data: The Daybook includes approximate dates for astronomical events, such as star positions, meteor showers, solstice, equinox, perihelion (the Sun’s position closest to Earth), and aphelion (the Sun’s position farthest from Earth).
I have included the sunrise and sunset for Yellow Springs as a general guide to the progression of the year in this location, but those statistics also reflect trends that are world-wide, if more rapid in some places and slower in others.
Even though the day’s length is almost never exactly the same from one town to the next, a minute lost or gained in Yellow Springs is often a minute lost or gained elsewhere, and the Yellow Springs numbers can be used as a simple way of watching the lengthening or shortening of the days, and, therefore, of watching the turn of the planet. For those who wish to keep track of the Sun themselves in their own location, abundant sources are now available for this information in local and national media.
Average Temperatures: Average temperatures in Yellow Springs are also part of each day’s entry. Since the rise and fall of temperatures in other parts of the North America, even though they may start from colder or warmer readings, keep pace with the temperatures here, the highs and lows in Yellow Springs are, like solar statistics, helpful indicators of the steady progress of the year throughout most of the states along the 40th Parallel (except in the mountains). The daybook journal entries can be cross-referenced with the list of monthly average temperatures between 1981 and 2018 in order to compare the daily inventories with the month’s weather in a given year.
Weather: My daily, weekly and monthly weather summaries have been distilled from over thirty years of observations. They are descriptions of the local weather history I have kept in order to track the gradual change in temperature, precipitation and cloud cover through the year. I have also used them in order to try to identify particular characteristics of each day. They are not meant to be predictions.
Although my interest in the Yellow Springs microclimate at first seemed too narrow to be of use to those who lived outside the area, I began to modify it to meet the needs of a number of regional and national farm publications for which I started writing in the mid 1980s. And so, while the summaries are based on my records in southwestern Ohio, they can be and have been used, with interpretation and interpolation, throughout the Midwest , the Middle Atlantic states and the East.
The Natural Calendar: In this section, I note the progress of foliage and floral changes, farm and garden practices, migration times for common birds and peak periods of insect activity. Some of these notes are second-hand; I am a sky watcher, but not an astronomer, and I rely on the government’s astronomical data and a few other references for much of my information about the stars and the Sun. I am also a complete amateur at bird watching, and most of the migration dates used in the seasonal calendar come from published sources. And even though I keep close track of the farm year, the percentages listed for planting and harvesting are interpretations of averages supplied by the state’s weekly crop reports.
At the beginning of each spring and summer month, I have included a floating calendar of blooming dates which lists approximate flowering times for many plants, shrubs and trees in an average Ohio Valley season. The floating chronology describes the relationship between events more than exact dates of these occurrences.
Although the flora of the eastern and central United States is hardly limited to the species mentioned here, the flowers listed are common enough to provide easily recognized landmarks for gauging the advance of the year. I found, for example, that a record of my drives south during March and April complemented the floating calendar and allowed me to see the approximate differences between Yellow Springs and other locations. I also learned that April in the Lower Midwest is more like March in the Southeast and more like May in the Upper Midwest. The Natural Calendar summaries, then, provide guidelines for moveable feasts that shift not only according to fixed geographical regions but also according to the weather in any particular year.
Daybook Entries: The journal entries in the daybook section provide the raw material from which I wrote the Natural Calendar digests. They offer a record that anyone with a few guidebooks could make, and they include just a small number of the natural markers that anyone might discover.
When I began to take notes about the world around me, I found that there were few descriptions of actual events in nature available for southwestern Ohio. There was no roadmap for the course of the year. My daily observations, as narrow and incomplete as they were, were especially significant to me since I had found no other narrative of the days, no other depiction of what was actually occurring around me. In time, the world came into focus with each particle I named. I saw concretely that time and space were the sum of their parts.
As my notes for each day accumulated, I could see the wide variation of events that occurred from year to year; at the same time, I saw a unity in this syncopation from which I could identify numerous sub-seasons and with which I could understand better the kind of habitat in which I was living and, consequently, myself.
When I paged through the journal entries for each day, I was drawn back to the space in which they were made. I browsed and imagined, returned to the journey.
Companions: Many friends, acquaintances and family members have contributed their observations to the daybook, and their participation has taught me that my private seasons are also community seasons, and that all of our experiences together help to lay the foundation for a rich, local consciousness.
The Month of May
May Averages: 1981 through 2018
Normal May Average Temperature: 61.6
Year Average
1981 57.3
1982 67.9
1983 56.7
1984 57.2
1985 62.8
1986 63.8
1987 66.4
1988 63.5
1989 58.8
1990 58.5
1991 69.3
1992 60.5
1993 62.0
1994 58.6
1995 60.4
1996 60.0
1997 55.8
1998 66.0
1999 63.7
2000 64.6
2001 63.5
2002 58.6
2003 60.0
2004 65.6
2005 57.3
2006 59.7
2007 65.6
2008 58.4
2009 62.6
2010 64.3
2011 62.5
2012 68,3
2013 61.0
2014 64.4
2015 68.0
2016 61.1
2017 61.6
2018 70.3
2019 65.3
May 1
The 121st Day of the Year
Now the bright Morning-star, day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the east, and leads with her
The flowering May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
John Milton
Sunrise/set: 5:36/7:29
Day’s Length: 13 hours 53 minutes
Average High/Low: 68/47
Average Temperature: 57
Record High: 88 – 1951
Record Low: 26 – 1963
Weather
Rain falls one May 1 out of three in my record, and odds are about the same for completely overcast conditions. Highs are in the 50s fifteen percent of the time, in the 60s fifty-five percent, in the 70s twenty-five percent, 80s five percent. Frost comes once or twice in a decade.
The Weather in the Week Ahead
This quarter of May brings highs above 60 on 75 percent of the afternoons, and warm 70s or 80s a little more than half the years. May 2 is typically the coldest day of the period, bringing cool 50s on 35 percent of the afternoons, and a 20 percent chance of 70s or 80s. Frost strikes only 10 to 15 percent of the mornings and is most likely after the first high pressure system of the month passes through around the 2nd of the month, and after the second system arrives near the 7th.
Each day of the period carries at least a 30 to 35 percent chance of a shower, but some of those days have a much better chance of sun than others. The 6th has an unusual 90 percent chance of clear to partly cloudy skies, making it historically one of only a handful of such days in the year. The 8th through the 10th are not all that far behind, each having an 80 to 85 percent chance of sun.
The May Outlook
Normal temperatures continue to rise at the rate of one degree every three days this month. Average highs move from the upper 60s on May 1 to the upper 70s by the beginning of June. Lows climb from the middle 40s to the middle 50s.
The day’s length grows by 53 minutes in a Yellow Springs May, gains 25 minutes in sunrise time, 28 minutes at sunset. For all of that, the rate of the day’s expansion slows by 19 minutes from April’s frantic pace.
Distribution of high temperatures is normally five days in the 80s, fifteen days in the 70s, seven days in the 60s, and four days in the 50s.
The warmest May days, those with the best chance (40 percent or better chance of a day above 80 degrees) are the 11th through the 14th, the 16th, the 20th through the 22nd, the 25th, and the 31st. The coldest days in May, those with at least a 40 percent chance of highs below 70 degrees, are the 1st through the 8th, the 12th, 13th, and 15th.
In an average year, May is the second wettest month of the Yellow Springs year. Rainfall is ordinarily greatest as strawberries begin to set fruit toward the end of the month, thus the name, “Strawberry Rains.”
The cloudiest days in May, those with less than a 45 percent chance of sun, are the 5th, 12th, 25th, 26th, and 29th. The wettest May days, those with at least a 45 percent chance of precipitation, are the 12th, 18th, 19th, 22nd, 25th, 26th, 27th, and, wettest of all with a 70 percent chance of rain: the 29th.
The driest days in May, those with no more than a 30 percent chance of rain, are the 3rd, 6th, 7th, 11th, 13th and 15th. The May days with a better than an 85 percent chance of sunny or partly cloudy skies, are the 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 14th, 16th, 17th, 23rd, and 27th.
Springcount to Summercount: Twenty-three major spring cold fronts cross the nation between the middle of February and the last week of May. Three passed through in February, seven in March, six in April, six more spring fronts in May. The final weather system of this month often is the first front of Early Summer. Fronts will reach the Midwest around the following dates; they will come through about two days earlier in the West, a day or two later in the East.
May 2: The first three days of May are often marked by a “Lilac Winter” high-pressure system that chills one of the most fragrant times of the year. During this brief season, frost comes about ten percent of the time in the North, but usually stays away in the South. Temperatures warm significantly as the front moves away, and chilly afternoons in the 40s and 50s are relatively uncommon as the May 7 front approaches.
May 7: With the arrival of the second major high pressure system of the month, there is a slight possibility of a return of Lilac Winter, and frost is frequent on May 8. The period of May 8 through 14 historically brings more storms to the nation than any other period except the days between May 17 and 24.
May 12: The day before this front arrives often has the warmest weather history of the month, bringing 80s more often than any other day until June. But the arrival of the front can bring flurries and storms. This is also one of the last frost-bearing fronts to move across the nation. Although gardens in the North are not immune to a freeze throughout the entire month of May, the greatest danger of loss from low temperatures recedes quickly as this high moves out over the Atlantic. Sometimes the weather stagnates between the May 12 front and the May 20 front, creating conditions favorable for a heat wave across the South.
May 15: This front and the next two are often followed by the “Strawberry Rains,” the wettest time of May in the lower Midwest and the Mid Atlantic states. May 15 is a good target date for having fields planted in order to avoid a serious delay in seeding. Spring rains and humidity can increase the risk of internal parasites and foot problems in livestock. Chances of frost are extremely low just before and two days after this front arrives.
May 20: The days surrounding this front are some of the most turbulent of May, often marked by rain, tornadoes and high winds. The May 20 system also brings the threat of frost to the northern tier of states, but it typically spares tomatoes and eggplant below the 40th Parallel.
May 24: This is usually the last frost-bearing front to Wisconsin and Minnesota gardens, and the days following its arrival are unseasonably cold one year out of three. Even though more than half of May 25ths and 26ths along the 40th Parallel are in the 70s or 80s, a full 40 percent are not, giving them the most potential for chilly conditions since the May 15. Chances of totally overcast conditions rise all the way to 50 percent. As the sixth high-pressure system of the month moves off to the east, the likelihood for cold temperatures quickly decreases.
May 29: Rain is often heavy as the final front of May approaches. When this high moves away, however, it usually leaves sunny, dry conditions. Along and below the 40th Parallel, summer heat typically begins several days later. Heat stress can slow the rate of gain in livestock. Protection from the weather, plenty of water and adequate feed and supplements may help to reduce weight loss.
A Floating Sequence
For the Blooming of Shrubs, Trees, Wildflowers and Perennials
The following list is based on my personal observations in southwestern Ohio over a period of 30 years. The dates are approximate, but I have tried to show a relatively true sequence of first blossoming times during an average spring. Although the dates on all flower calendars are somewhat arbitrary (and may vary by up to 60 days between the Canadian border and the South), a “floating calendar” can be used throughout the country by adjusting the sequence to fit the climate and the particular year.
Many of the events mentioned in this May Daybook occur up to a month earlier in the South and up to a month later in the North. For example, if May apples bloom in your woodlot on April 5 instead of May 5, subsequent blooming dates will follow more or less in the order given, but on different dates. Since microclimates, as well as precipitation, temperature, soil quality and the day’s length, determine blooming times, personal records can refine and reorder sequences to reflect local conditions.
April 13
\Wisteria (Wisteria frutescens)
Bellwort (Uvularia)
Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
Cressleaf Groundsel or Butterweed (Packera globella)
April 14
Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)
Winter Cress (Barbarea vulgaris)
Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum)
April 15:
Redbud (Cercis canadensis)
Mid-Season Tulip (tulipa)
Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)
April 16:
Domestic Strawberry (Fragaria ananassa)
White Violet (Viola canadensis)
April 17:
Buttercup (Ranunculus acris)
Money Plant (Epipremnum aureum)
Thyme-Leafed Speedwell (Veronica serpyllifolia)
April 19:
Dogwood (Cornus)
Watercress (Nasturtium officinale)
April 20:
Lilac (Syringa)
Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)
Ragwort (Jacobaea vulgaris)
April 21:
Snowball Viburnum (Viburnum macrocephalum)
Azalea (Rhododendron indicum )
Early Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dioicum)
Columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris)
April 22:
Bridal Wreath Spirea (Spirea prunifolia)
Late-Season Tulips and Daffodils
April 23:
Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)
Miterwort (Mitella)
Wild Phlox (Phlox divaricate)
Celandine (Stylophorum diphyllum)
April 24:
Clematis (Clematis x jackmanii)
Wood Hyacinth (Hyacinthoides non-scripta)
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata)
April 25:
Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
Wild Ginger (Asarum caudatum)
Bugle (Adjuga reptans)
April 26:
Meadow Parsnip (Haspium trifoliatum Gray)
Wood Betony (Stachys officinalis)
Honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica L.)
Buckeye (Aesculus glabra)
Red Horse-Chestnut (Aesculus × carnea)
Nodding Trillium (Trillium cernuum)
Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum narbonense)
April 27:
Early-Season Iris (Iridaceae)
Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)
Horseradish (Armoracia rusticana)
Common Fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus)
April 28:
Osage Orange (maclura pomifera)
Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis)
Roundleaf Ragwort (Senecio obovatus)
April 29:
Wild Cherry (Prunus avium)
Spring Cress (Cardamine bulbosa)
April 30:
Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)
Korean Lilac (Syringa meyeri)
Catchweed (Galium aparine)
Larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum)
May 1:
Silver Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia)
Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua)
Comfrey (Symphytum officinale)
Spring Sedum (Sedum ternatum)
May 2:
Poppy (Papaver somniferum)
English Daisy (Bellis perennis)
May 3:
White Mulberry (Morus alba)
Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum)
May 4:
Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)
Honey Locust (Gleditsi triacanthos)
Black Walnut (Juglans nigra)
Oaks (Quercus)
Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella)
May 5:
Painted Daisy (Pyrethrum roseum) Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea)
May Apple (Podophyllum peltatum)
Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
May 6:
Rhododendron (Rhododendron)
Columbine (Aquilegia)
Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis odorata)
Robin’s Fleabane (Erigeron pulchellus)
English Plantain (Plantago lanceolata)
May 8:
Mock Orange (Philadelphus coronaries)
Sweet William (Dianthus barbatus)
Shooting Star (Dodecatheon)
May 9:
Chives (Allium schoenoprasum)
Catmint (Nepeta)
Waterleaf (Talinum fruticosum)
Wild Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)
May 10:
Sweet Rocket /Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis)
Dwarf Larkspur (Delphinium tricorne)
Tulip Tree (Liriodendro)
Yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea)
Snow-on-the-Mountain (Euphorbia marginata)
May 11:
Peonies (Paeonia)
Elms (Ulmus)
Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla)
May 12:
Clustered Snakeroot (Sanicula gregaria)
White Clover (Trifolium repens)
Meadow Goat’s Beard (Tragopogon dubius)
Red Clover (Trifolium pretense)
May 13:
Common Plantain (Plantago major)
Black Medic (Medicago lupulina)
Wild Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora)
Blue Flag (Iris versicolor) Wild Daisy (Bellis perennis)
Common Bedstraw (Galium asprellum)
May 14:
Wild Mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Spiderwort (Tradescantia)
Scabiosa (Scabiosa)
Lupine (Lupines)
Geum (Geum abendsonne)
Fire Pink (Silene virginica)
May 15:
Common Orange Day Lily (Hemerocallis fulva) Stella d’Oro Lily (Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’)
May 16:
Yucca (Yucca filamentosa)
Blue Flax (Linum lewisii)
Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)
Blackberry (Rubus villosus)
May 17:
Achillea (Achillea millefolium)
Swamp Iris (Iris)
Wild Grape (Vitis vinifera)
Cow Vetch (Vicia villosa)
May 18:
Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantine)
Kousa Dogwood (Cornus kousa)
Yellow Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis)
May 19:
Climbing Rose (Rosa setigera)
Tea Rose (Rosoideae rosa)
Fringe Tree (Chionanthus)
May 20:
Blue-Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) Corn Salad (Valerianella locusta)
May 21:
Catalpa (Catalpa speciosa)
Pink Spirea (Spiraea japonica)
Wild Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa)
May 22:
Privet (Ligustrum)
River Willow (Salix myrtilloides)
Smooth Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum biflorum)
May 23:
Astilbe (Astilbe arendsii)
Panicled Dogwood (Cornus racemosa)
Poison Hemlock (Coniu maculatum)
Angelica (Angelica)
Birdsfoot Trefoil (Lobus corniculatus)
Sundrops Primrose (Oenothera fruticosa)
May 24:
Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica)
Motherwort (Leonurus cardiac)
Multiflora Rose (Rosa multifora)
May 25:
Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima)
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Curly Dock (Rumex crispus)
May 26:
Poison Ivy (Toxicosdendron radicans)
White Campion (Silene latifolia)
Common Cinquefoil (Potentilla simplex)
May 27:
Cottonwood (Aigeiros)
Honewort (Cryptotaenia canadensis)
Japanese Pond Iris (Iris versicolor)
May 28:
Elderberry (Sambucus)
Lesser Stitchwort (Stellaria graminea)
May 29:
Lychnis (Lychnis coronaria)
Cow Parsnip (Heracleum)
May 30:
Canadian Thistle (Cirsium arvense)
May 31:
Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata)
Chicory (Cichorium intybus)
Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annus)
June 1:
Rugosa Rose (Rosa rugosa)
Floribunda Rose (Floribunda)
Delphinium (Delphinium)
Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria)
June 2:
Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)
Heliopsis (Heliopsis helianthoides)
Quickweed (Galinsoga parviflora)
June 3:
Swamp Valerian (Valeriana ulginosa)
Moneywort (Lysimachia nummularia)
Rape brassica (Napus)
June 4:
Campanula (Campanula rapunculus)
Wild Garlic (Allium ursinum)
Scarlet Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis)
Nodding Thistle (Carduus nutans)
Common “Ditch” Lily” (Hemerocallis fulva)
June 5:
Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)
Crown Vetch (Securigera varia)
Smartweed (Polygonum hydropiper)
June 6:
Pickerel Plant (Pontederia cordata)
Balloon Flower (Platycodon grandiflorus)
Deptford Pink (Sianthus armeria)
June 7:
Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)
Indian Hemp (Apocynum cannabinum)
Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia)
June 8:
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
June 9:
Asiatic Lily (Lilium asiaticum)
Carnation (Dianthus caryophylus)
Blueweed (Echium vulgare L.)
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)
June 10:
Early Season Hostas
Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum maximum)
Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)
June 11:
Hollyhock (Alcea rosea)
Beardtongue (Penstemon barbatus)
June 12:
Mallow (Malva sylvestris)
Avens (Geum urbanum)
June 13:
Tall Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum)
Great Mullein (Verbascum Thapsus)
June 14:
Leatherflower (Clematis pitcher)
Common Sow Thistle (Onchus oleraceus)
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
June 15:
Large-Leafed Hostas
Wild Petunia (Ruellia humilis)
May Phenology
When lamb’s ear, tea roses, pink spirea or privets are blooming, then frost is likely to stay away until autumn.
When daisies flower by the wayside and white mulberries and mountain maples bloom, then daddy longlegs hunt in the undergrowth and darners by the water’s edge.
When redbud trees are getting seedpods and the first crickets sing in the sun throughout the Ohio Valley, then horseshoe crabs mate along the Carolina and Georgia coastline.
When lilac flowers fade, hawthorn lace bugs and hawthorn leafminers emerge in the hawthorns. Pine needle scale eggs, cooley spruce gall adelgid and Eastern spruce gall adelgid eggs hatch, too.
When poppies bloom, white-throated sparrows, ruby-crowned kinglets, yellow-rumped warblers, magnolia warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks, and orioles migrate through the East.
When tulips are in full bloom in the North, the best of the spring wildflowers have all disappeared in the Southwest. But prickly pear cacti are still flowering in the desert.
When mock orange reaches full flower, black vine weevils and greater peach tree borers appear. Then come the rhododendron borers and the dogwood borers!
When the great spring dandelion bloom reaches into the Northeast, pelicans and trumpeter swans will be laying eggs near Yellowstone Lake, and gosling will be hatching almost everywhere.
When multiflora roses come into flower, then the bronze birch borer emerges and oystershell scale eggs hatch.
And when American holly blooms (about the same time as the multiflora roses), then potato leafhoppers will be hopping in the potatoes.
When hummingbirds arrive at feeders, thrushes, catbirds and scarlet tanagers arrive, too.
When strawberries come into full bloom, then wild cucumber will be sprouting along the rivers.
When summer phlox are two-feet tall, catbirds call in the bushes.
When apple blossoms fall, then rare, medicinal golden seal blooms in the woods.
When mayflies swarm by the water, spitbugs make their spittle shelters in the parsnips, and the first cut of hay is underway.
When chives bloom in the garden, then crappie fishing peaks in the shallows.
When flower clusters of the sweet-gum tree fall, then the first strawberry could be red.
When azaleas lose their petals, morel season is about over for the year, and swallowtail butterflies come looking for flowers.
When flea beetles feed in the vegetable garden, cedar waxwings migrate north, and fiddler crabs emerge from their tunnels in the estuaries of the South.
When the first brown “June” bug appears at porch lights, then young fireflies glow in the night grass.
When the last locust flowers fall to the ground, then mulberries ripen. In the wetlands, wild iris are in bloom.
When cottonwood cotton floats in the wind, then deer give birth, and pollen from grasses will be reaching its peak. Panicled dogwood is budding, and grackles feed their pesky young.
When blackberries have set fruit across the South, then sunflowers are in full bloom in southern California, and spring wheat and oats are just about all planted in the North.
When nettles are waist high, then cutworms roam the garden.
When Canadian thistles start to bud, frost usually stays away from peppers, cantaloupes and cucumbers. But armyworms and corn borers wander in the fields.
When the first Canadian thistle blooms, the corn should be at least eight inches tall.
When spring crickets sing, leafhoppers visit the garden and snapping turtles lay their eggs in the sand.
When the first elderberries bloom, bean leaf beetles and alfalfa weevils assault the field and garden.
Frostwatch
Between May 1 and June 1, only a few mornings of light frost occur in Ohio. Chances of freezing temperatures after the dates listed below are:
May l: 45 percent
May 5: 35 percent
May 10: 25 percent
May 15: 15 percent
May 20: 10 percent
May 25: 5 percent
May 31: 2 percent
Estimated May Pollen Count
On a scale of 0 to 700 grains per cubic meter: Pollen from flowering trees usually peaks about May 10, but trees continue to be the major source of pollen in the air until grass pollen replaces it in the third week of the month.
May 1: 400 May 5: 540 May 10: 500 May 15: 300
May 20: 250 May 25: 160 May 31: 100
Estimated May Mold Count
On a scale of 0 to 7,000 grains per cubic meter:
May 1: 2600 May 5: 3000 May 10: 2000 May 15: 1100 May 20: 250 May 25: 150 May 31: 100
Natural Calendar
The first week of May (or the first week of Late Spring) brings Daddy Longlegs Season to the undergrowth and Petal-Fall Season throughout town. Darner Season commences along the waterways. Dandelion Blooming Season ends throughout the Lower Midwest as Ruby Throated Hummingbird Season begins at feeders there. All along the 40th Parallel, Bellwort Season, Golden Seal Season, Golden Alexander Season and Solomon’s Seal Season mark the woods. Scarlet Pimpernel Season appears in the lawn. Sweet Gum Flowering Season, White Mulberry Flowering Season, Black Walnut Flowering Season and Oak Flowering Season spread through the high canopy. In the garden, it’s Poppy Season, Columbine Season and Rhododendron Season.
Daybook
1981: Most maple leaves are fully developed now.
1982: Lilacs, apple trees in bloom, full crab apples.
1983: As garlic mustard blooms, the forest floor leaves middle spring behind. The low April plants disappear under the tall Cruciferae.
1986: Buckeyes flower.
1987: Most maple leaves have formed, many trees dropping new seeds. Redbuds and crab apples are almost done, many dogwoods in full bloom. Locusts leafing, high canopy greening in browns, yellows and greens. I saw a snake hunting in the river at sundown. Buds on black raspberries and honeysuckles, mock orange, mulberries. Rhubarb full grown. Buckeyes full bloom, daisies begin to open. Sweet rockets budding for a week now. Garlic mustard full bloom. Mountain maple full bloom.
1988: Middle Prairie is purple with purple deadnettle, gold with knee high winter cress, bright green with clover and pennycress, yellow with faded leaves of spring beauties and shepherd’s purse, full of white and yellow cabbage butterflies. In the woods, the paths are covered with violets. On the ridge, dandelions are still thick, and they spread as far as I can see. Mint paces the daisy fleabane, four inches tall. Wild cucumber sprouts now have three regular leaves. Bouncing bets are two inches. Sycamore leaves not quite an inch, elms half an inch long. Shepherd’s purse almost all to seed. Shrill chant of toads from the river banks.
1989: First major dandelion seeding throughout the county. Elm leaves an inch-and-a-half long.
1990: First wild geranium and first sweet rockets bloom. Ranunculus at home full bloom.
1991: Cascades and Covered Bridge in Glen Helen: Wild geranium, spring cress, sedum, swamp buttercup, buckeyes, ragwort, garlic mustard, violets, phlox, spiderwort, Jacob’s ladder all full bloom.
1993: Buds forming on the chives. First dwarf iris blooms. A few cherry petals fall slowly in the warm breeze. The latest apple trees (including the back yard apple) open their first buds. First lilacs in the yard, other bushes some full bloom, some still starting. First bud on the small yarrows. Three dahlia bulbs have sprouted, leaves an inch or so long. Spring beauties and dandelions hold at full bloom. Honeysuckles have first buds. The golden green of April persists, pastures, rolling hills glowing.
1994: Hyacinths have all faded now, gone by the end of April.
1995: The first chives opened in the garden today. Ginkgoes at school maybe an inch wide. Ash, locusts and sugar gum are starting to come out.
1996: Landmarks in this coldest of my springs so far in Yellow Springs: The latest of the daffodils, the smaller ones, are still full bloom, the others gone. Quince still red, forsythia maybe a fourth still in flower. All the maples in the yard are blooming. Major leafing has begun of box elders, and the north brush line of the yard is filling in now, almost obscuring the street. The small, short tulips which bloomed maybe five days ago at the southwest garden are still open, the tall mid-season tulips are holding too, reds and yellows. Bleeding heart is in full bloom. Cherry tree is in full bloom, doing well in the cool rains. A few pear flowers are left downtown, the apples are just coming out, started maybe two to three days ago. Across the area, flooding is widespread, the water deep into Glen Helen. Yesterday there was standing water all over the yard. And snow flurries!
1998: Purple deadnettle yellows by the roses. Huge bud heads on the chives with horseradish well into bloom. Columbine, bleeding heart, wild geraniums, money plant, dead nettle: full flower. Sweet rockets early blossoming along the south wall. Oaks leafing. Full dogwoods now, late lilacs, some rich, some decaying. Wood hyacinths full. The landscape is only a few days from where I was in Montgomery, Alabama on March 23.
1999: Locusts and Osage barely starting, white mulberry leaves maybe half an inch. Daisies and pyrethrums budding, pink quince full bloom.
2000: Pink quince in full bloom. White lilacs underway. Dorothy reported seeing cecropia moths mating a week ago.
2001: Wisteria blooms at the front porch for the first time ever, two pale violet clusters. Beside them bright pink azaleas. Wood hyacinths coming out in the south garden. White lilacs dying back. redbuds turn to leaves. Into Ross County, the mountains are green, the brightness intense across the countryside. Bridal wreath and snowball viburnum through the foothills. End of the great dandelion bloom throughout southern Ohio. Locust and ash are leafing at my Wilberforce parking lot, and the ginkgo by my window. Rose of Sharon along the borders of the yard. Corn and soybean fields cultivated to a fine powdery, velvety surface.
2002: Yellow Springs into South Carolina with John: Box turtle seen along the road below Chillicothe. Dogwood and apples in bloom in West Virginia, wisteria in Charleston, then we regress to pre-Yellow Springs conditions in the mountains. Descending through Virginia: tulip tree and poison hemlock in flower at the North Carolina border (suddenly putting me at the fourth week of Yellow Springs May). Poppies, daisies, sweet rockets, wild cherry seen in northern and central North Carolina, well into the lower Piedmont. Approaching Charlotte: Yellow swallowtail sighted, blackberries in bloom, stella d’oro lilies seen, Japanese honeysuckle blossoming, full Early Summer. Red daylilies below Columbia. Near the Santee Reservoir not far from Charleston, South Carolina, the wheat is at June 20th height for Yellow Springs, almost ready to cut. We’ve traveled 600 miles today and about six weeks.
2003: A wren is nesting in the shed. At about 5:20 a.m., after the cardinals and doves and the jay have started, a new birdsong, a steady “chip” call of a female cardinal.
2004: A red admiral butterfly explored the hyacinths opening along the west wall this afternoon. Casey’s red-flowering buckeye blooms about this time.
2005: First star of Bethlehem opened today. Termites swarmed in the greenhouse. Lily-of-the-valley is budded.
2006: Bridal wreath is starting to open along High Street. Redbuds are fading, leaves increasing. Wild geraniums are in full bloom behind Mrs. Timberlake’s house. Cherry petals have almost all fallen. Apples weaken in the alley. The last periwinkles disappear into their foliage. Serviceberry trees have small green berries on Dayton Street; across the street from them, blue iris are opening. The pair of starlings continues to attack the shiny chimney. Jeanie made the first rhubarb pie yesterday, the rhubarb stalks so long and thick, the best year ever.
2007: Mrs. Timberlake’s wild geraniums are in full bloom this morning, and her yellow buttercups are coming in beside them. More celandine is blooming in the yard, more lilacs opening. The purple magnolia that had all its flowers burned in the frost three weeks ago is blossoming again. Wisteria and bittersweet finally leafing, fleabane and sweet Cicely open along the north side of the yard.
2008: Mrs. Timberlake’s wild geraniums are in full bloom (no buttercups). A few grackles cluck in the alley, cardinals call in the distance this morning. No red-bellied woodpecker heard. The alley willow is completely leafed out, red mulberry leaves the size of a squirrel’s ear. A few sweet rockets have buds now, and sweet Williams approach the budding stage. The first star of Bethlehem opened today and the first late, small, red tulip.
2009: The Indian hyacinths opened yesterday, and our first geranium. The one red tulip near the shed came in maybe a week ago, is now fading. The circle garden of hyacinths, deadnettle and violets is coming into its own now. The first tall allium are opening just a little. Transplanting of resurrection lilies, ferns and small hostas done between showers. Twine attached to poles for the peas to climb. Black walnut leaves have come out now, honeysuckle buds and mock orange buds turning white, ready to start. About 3:00 this afternoon, we heard the cry of an American toad in the pond, the first time we have had a toad calling here in years.
2011: Black walnut flowers falling to the street in front of the Lawsons’ house. Nesting grackles loud in the alley, robins, sparrows and cardinals all around me. Virginia creeper leaves have emerged, some an inch or so in length, still red. Mrs. Timberlake’s geraniums are in full bloom. Six elephant ears planted in the east garden, five dahlias along the north garden wall. The first Indian hyacinths opened in the warm, cloudy afternoon.
From Madison, Wisconsin, Maggie writes: “April was a good, if chilly month. I think the blue scylla and the daffodils have appreciated the cool weather, as the latter still look perky (having been around since the 12th or so) and the former finally fading (having been blooming since at least the 5th). And tulips are about to bloom or have just bloomed (depending on the tulip!). Fosythia are at their prettiest, and everything else is budding. Truly, this spring season is an eye popper!”
2012: Soft morning, rain overnight, the air heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, mock orange (which just opened) and locust blossoms, robins singing by 4:40 (at least) : one sparrow fledgling begging for food at the feeders as Jeanie and I watched around 7:15. The whole countryside in full middle-May flower. Around the yard, the red azalea – pummeled by the rain but still radiant, sweet rockets, earliest roses, geraniums, lily-of-the-valley, sweet Cicely, tall alliums, buttercup, garlic mustard, late hyacinths, lamium. Large-budded peonies and chives, buds on the privets. The trellis wisteria and our two trumpet creepers have started to leaf out. Crows, cardinals, grackles, sparrows, robins, red-bellied woodpecker calling. In the neighborhood, the great maple seed drop is over. Tulip trees flower along Limestone Street. Liz’s allium, geraniums and forget-me-nots bloom beside her viburnum and orange poppies. A few houses from us on High Street, Mateo’s weigela is in full flower, ours fully budded.
2013: I was waiting for the robins this morning. They started just a few minutes before 4:00. The sky was so clear, the Summer Triangle overhead. A screech owl called in the back yard, from the same location as the owls have through the years, at 4:20, but the robins dominated the chorus until 4:45 when cardinals, song sparrows and doves came in within a minute or two of one another. I didn’t notice house sparrows chirping until 5:20. As I walked with Bella in the light of the high third-quarter moon, I could see black walnut flowers fallen to the sidewalk.
The day became the warmest so far this year, cloudless and intense. The wisteria came into bloom and the first wood hyacinths. The red crab apple tree is in full flower and the red azalea buds are soft and tender, ready to open any minute.
At Ellis Pond: toads singing, the dandelion bloom holding through the fields. Early buds have formed on the tulip trees, the oaks are flowering: sawtooth, scarlet, shingle and red with catkins, chinquapins and pin oaks holding back. Sugar maple leaves are a third to half size, pecans leafing.
Field pennycress in full bloom by the creek that flows into the fields across the road. In all of this I hold on to a sense of specificity; I mean the need to stop spring at this one place, to name and hold it here, to collect around me this exact grace, to understand its impermanence, but in a seizure of denial to allow myself to be only here, my senses counting without sequence: full, embracing, entranced.
2016: After a week of rain, the weeds and flowers totally lush, a warm day between cold waves. Jonatha wrote at 1:03 p.m. “I just saw a pair of Baltimore Orioles at my feeder. Beautiful!” Across the street, Lil’s maple and Mrs. Timberlake’s maple are both filling in quickly; the Danielson’s maple between them is still in flower. Working in the garden this afternoon, I saw a red admiral near the monarda. Columbines and the first poppies are open downtown.
2017: Santiago, Spain: On the way into the city, Tat and I saw locusts in full flower, At the hotel, small frogs in the two ponds here, late blossoming of golden water iris, small pink dogwood flowers quite late, large red spirea shrub well budded, white water lilies in early bloom. Through the city, only annuals were blooming along the streets, pansies set out by the fountains.
2018: After the coldest April in memory, pear petals are just staring to drift to the streets. Apples and violets and dandelions are still early. At midmorning, I watched a rose-breasted grosbeak at the backyard feeder. The sighting joined several through the years in early May. Jane said that someone had told her they saw a hummingbird yesterday. Then Jill told me that her student, Peter, had seen two male and two female rose-breasted grosbeaks in the morning.
2019: In a warm and sunny morning, Baltimore Orioles sang in the back trees, “tee-tee-tee-tidlee,” orange breasts bright. Leslie heard her first this morning, too. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just reported that the last 12 months have been the wettest in history for the continental United States, over six inches above average.
2020: Catbird seen in the north honeysuckle hedge, sings off and on through the afternoon. At Gerard’s old property, lily of the valley buds are fully formed, as are sweet Cicely buds and common fleabane buds in the back yard. Star of Bethlehem blossoms are showing up all around the dug-up annual garden area. From Goshen, Indiana, Judy reports that forsythias are leafing but that the pear trees are still in full flower.
And so we see in Plants and all of Nature the Word of God. Like any Scripture, Earth’s Matter is subject to our Doubt. But to the one who listens closely to its Cadence, it reveals the sweet hidden Truth.
Reginald Johnson